POP MUSIC REVIEW : Secular Shakes Hands With Gospel at Benefit

The annual “Coming Home to Friends” concerts at the Shrine Auditorium are by no means typical black gospel shows. There on Sunday, in a regulation baby-blue choir robe, was state Sen. Diane E. Watson (D-Los Angeles), speechifying against perceived governmental homophobia and exhorting, “Don’t be afraid to act up!”

And she wasn’t talking about the Book of Acts.

Sponsored by Dionne Warwick and Bishop Carl Bean, these shows (Sunday’s was the fourth) benefit the Minority AIDS Project, and draw some incongruous demographics: conservative black churchgoers, including many from the tradition regarding homosexuality as sin, alongside gay couples of all colors.

The two strains may not be mutually exclusive, but this is still something akin to the lamb lying down with the lion.

These shows hold obvious appeal beyond those with a stake in the politics of AIDS funding or hard-core gospel-philes: Each year Warwick manages to attract hot secular R&B; singers--whose music roots often lie in the black church--as well as the leading lights of spiritual music.

This year, non-gospel drawing power included Cherrelle, Miki Howard, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Freda Payne, ex-Supreme Scherrie Payne and co-emcee Marsha Warfield plus, from the inspirational ranks, Daryl Coley, Tramaine Hawkins and Henry Jackson. Bridging both worlds was Clifton Davis, the “Amen” TV star who records Christian LPs.

Some of the secular talent tended toward a non-religious, life-affirming gospel--actress Ralph crooned “While I’m Around” as a secular survivalist anthem; ditto for Cherrelle’s “Be Grateful”--while others went the whole this-is-church nine yards.

But aside from Linda Hopkins’ brief, stunning turn with just a piano backing, it was the choirs predictably claiming the most powerful moments--notably the Kurt Carr Singers, a seven-strong chorale with the velocity of a mass choir, and the Pentecostal Community Choir, offering unusual vocal stacking that managed both trickiness and transcendence.

Organizer Bean led prayer for an AIDS cure, but, robe aside, Sen. Watson opted to tap into worldly indignation: “We don’t have an enlightened governor. . . . We don’t have an enlightened board of supervisors. They’re Neanderthals that we have to educate.”

Even Christian charity, it seems, has its limits.